


i am addicted to death (so remind me what it’s like to live)

by cywscross



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles, Bad Parenting, Child Murder, Child Neglect, Death, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Murder, Neglect, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is sixteen years old.  He has already died seventy-eight times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am addicted to death (so remind me what it’s like to live)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is kinda weird. It's not really a reincarnation fic but Stiles dies a lot and comes back a lot, and some of the stuff in here might not be your cup of tea. But I did enjoy writing it. I didn’t like ending it here though so I’m going to write one more chapter after this, probably not as long but still long-ish. Stiles seems better by the end of chapter 1 but there’ll definitely be some backsliding before he’s on the mend again. Peter’s got his work cut out for him.

 

 _“And I find it kinda funny_  
_I find it kinda sad_  
_The dreams in which I'm dying_  
_Are the best I've ever had…”_

 

* * *

 

The first time is an accident.  Stiles is four, and he’s playing in the backyard alone.  His dad is at work, and his mom is taking a nap because she isn’t feeling well.  She told him to stay inside and don’t answer the door if anyone rings the bell but Stiles got bored after a few hours and decided it was okay to go into the backyard so long as he didn’t circle around to the front of the house.  Strangers can’t see him in the back, and he doesn’t want to bother Mama anyway when she’s sick.

He ends up climbing the big tree out back – he’s been practicing, getting higher each time – but just as he clambers up onto another branch, the bark cracks ominously before snapping completely in half, and Stiles is plummeting like a rock before he can even scream for help.

There’s pain when he hits the ground headfirst, a burning sensation at the back of his neck, and then-

-nothing.

Except there is something, because when he blinks once, maybe twice, he isn’t in any pain anymore, and he suddenly finds himself in a room.  It’s a very, _very_ big room because Stiles is standing near one wall but he can’t see the walls that should be on his left and right, and he can’t see the opposite wall either.  The only reason he knows that it’s a room and that all the walls are white is because that’s the only colour he can see in any direction he turns towards.  Even the floor is white, and the ceiling – high but not so high that he can’t see _that_ – is white too.

There’s nothing here though.  It’s just a very large, very empty white room, and Stiles is the only blotch of not-white colour there.  He’s dressed in the same clothes he was wearing when he fell, a red t-shirt with the Batman sign on the front and shorts, and he wonders if maybe he’s dreaming, because this isn’t his backyard, and he doesn’t think this is the hospital either because the hospital had a lot of white when he went there with his mom but it also had a lot of stuff inside, equipment that beeped, as well as doctors and nurses and sick people, and the place smelled funny.

This room smells like nothing.

He’s a little nervous because he’s all alone here.  Even with so much space in front of him, enough that he can’t see where this room ends, he still feels a bit trapped.  He glances at the wall behind him, hesitantly pressing a hand against it.  It’s as smooth and solid as it looks, and no matter how much Stiles loves Batman, he doesn’t have his ability to break down walls.

So he starts walking.  It’s not like he can do anything else.  Maybe there’ll be something waiting for him if he can reach another wall.

 

* * *

 

There isn’t.  Or maybe there is but Stiles wouldn’t know.  He walks and walks and walks and _walks_ but he gets nowhere.  He chose to go left so that he would at least have one wall right next to him the entire time, but it seems to stretch on forever, and Stiles is sure he’s been walking for hours now.

The funny thing is, he isn’t tired.  He isn’t even a little out of breath.  He isn’t hot, and he can’t say he was ever cold either.

He’s actually kind of bored by now, but mostly, he’s just lonely.

He wants Mama.

No sooner did that thought enter his mind that two doors appear right in front of him, and it makes him jump back with a startled yelp.  The doors aren’t even part of the wall, they’re just standing side by side, two black doors, the left with a fancy gold handle attached to it, and the right with a matching silver handle attached to it.

Stiles stares dumbly for a moment before creeping forward cautiously.  He circles around them to see if there’s anything behind them, but there isn’t.  They’re just two identical doors standing straight up without any support and looming over Stiles.

But…

He loops back around to stand in front of the doors again, and his gaze is drawn to the one on the left.

For some reason, that door reminds him of Mama.

The other door doesn’t look any scarier than the left one but it’s the left one that tugs at him like a warm hug, and for some reason, Stiles is completely certain that the left door will lead him back to Mama.

So that’s the one he takes.  He’s tired of this white room, and he wants to go _home_.

He reaches for the gold handle and pulls the door open.

And just like that, the white room fades away to black, and when Stiles blinks open eyes that he didn’t know he closed, he’s under a sunny blue sky again, lying flat on his back in his own backyard.

He shoots up, one hand immediately flying to his neck, but the pain he remembers being there is like a mostly forgotten dream, and when he scrambles to his feet, he feels perfectly fine, if a bit dirty from grass stains.  Nobody else is around.  It doesn’t even look like a whole lot of time has passed.

Did he fall asleep and dream about falling from the tree?

He looks down.  There’s a branch on the ground beside him, broken off at one end from…

He looks up.  The branch of the tree he was so proud of reaching today is missing.

Maybe…

Maybe he just got lucky?  He fell, but he was only knocked out?

He looks back at the ground.

That sounds about right.

He rubs the back of his neck again.

He’s okay; that’s what matters.  Though he’ll definitely be more careful when climbing anymore trees in the future.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

The second time is also something of an accident.  Stiles is six, and he’s made his first friend.  Scott just moved to Beacon Hills with his mom who’s a nurse, and after Stiles shoved Jackson into a sandbox for picking on Scott at recess because Scott lost the footrace during gym, even against the girls, they’ve been fast friends ever since.

Scott has asthma apparently, and kids find it funny for some reason.  Stiles doesn’t know why not being able to breathe is funny but he’s learned that people can be weird like that.  He ignores them and goes home to ask his dad about asthma instead, just in case Scott gets a really bad attack or something one day.  He’d ask his mom but she’s been gloomier lately, and she’s had to go to the doctor’s more often.  Both his parents assure him that she’ll be okay, so Stiles just tries to be good for them by doing his homework without needing to be told and keeping his room clean and even setting an alarm so his mom doesn’t have to get up so early in the morning just to wake _him_ up.

Likewise, when his dad calls one day to apologize for not being able to pick up him and Scott from school because he has a case and Stiles’ mom is feeling under the weather again, and tells them to call Melissa and ask her for a ride instead, Stiles convinces Scott to walk to Stiles’ house by themselves.  It’ll be fun, they’ll be like the big kids, and Scott just remembered that his mom has an extra shift today anyway.

Scott is a puppy and follows Stiles like one so it doesn’t take much coaxing for them to leave school grounds in the direction of his house.

It’s kind of cool, walking down the sidewalk by themselves without having an adult telling them not to run too far ahead.

They’re crossing a street when it happens.  It’s not one of those crosswalks with lights and everything, but it’s an intersection and a pretty quiet street too, and they’re very careful to look both ways before crossing.

Neither of them takes into account the car that comes squealing out of nowhere and weaving straight at them.

Stiles’ body is moving before his brain can catch up.  Scott is a little ahead of him so he throws himself at his best friend and hopes desperately that that will be enough to move them out of the way of the oncoming car.

It’s enough for Scott.  Not quite enough for Stiles.

Something hard slams into his hip, and he’s flung into the air like a ragdoll.  For a moment, it’s almost as if he’s flying, but then he lands – hard – and his head smacks against the pavement.

Everything goes black.

Until it doesn’t.  When he opens his eyes, he’s back in the white room.  Over the past two years, he’s all but convinced himself that the white room was just a dream, that he was knocked out when he fell from the tree, and his mind somehow came up with the strange room while he was unconscious.

Obviously, he was wrong.  That, or his mind somehow came up with this strange room a second time.

He climbs to his feet.  The wall’s beside him again, and everything is stupidly white.  There are no doors in sight.

He thought of his mother last time though, right before the doors appeared.  He thought of wanting to go home.

He glances around.  It isn’t quite home he’s thinking of at the moment.  The car accident is at the forefront of his mind.

And Scott.  Scott must be freaking out right now.  If he didn’t get hurt.  Stiles is pretty sure he didn’t but he wants to be certain.

So he needs to go back and make sure Scott’s okay.

And just like before, two doors appear, black and tall.

Stiles doesn’t hesitate this time.  He grabs the one on the left, the one that feels like Scott, and opens it.

The white room disappears, and Stiles blinks to find Scott bawling above him, face wet with snot and tears, breaths coming in frantic gasps, and clutching at Stiles’ shirt with shaking hands.

A shirt that’s soaked in blood, Stiles swiftly notices, near the hem where it’s ridden up, and his skin has been scraped raw by the concrete.

“Stiles!”  Scott shrills when he sees that Stiles’ eyes are open.  “Are you- You wouldn’t wake up!  And you’re bleeding!  I already called Mommy and she said to wait with you and there’s an ambulance coming and please don’t die I’m sorry-”

“Scott!”  Stiles struggles into a sitting position, making a face at the sticky red on both their hands.  “I’m okay!  I’m fine!  I was just-” He falters for half a second.  “-knocked out for a moment.  But I’m fine; I promise.”

Scott dissolves into fresh tears all over again and clings to Stiles in a terrified hug.  Stiles hugs back.  He’s nowhere near as scared even though he can feel some pain in his side now, and his leg probably shouldn’t be bent that way, but he mostly just feels numb.

He lifts one hand to touch the back of his head.  He remembers hitting his head, hard enough to make a sound.  And if he thinks about it, if he really thinks about it, that day in the backyard, when he fell from the tree, didn’t he… didn’t he break his neck?

People _die_ from broken necks and serious head injuries.  He’s pretty sure they don’t visit white rooms and…

And come back from the dead.

Distant sirens interrupt his train of thought.  He goes back to hugging Scott.

People don’t come back from the dead.  He’s letting his imagination get the better of him.

And yet…

 

* * *

 

They get into huge trouble.  Stiles shrinks under the weight of his dad’s disappointment after the hugs are over.  Scott’s still wincing from his mom’s lecture.

They’re grounded for the next two months.  No ice-cream.  No video games.  No seeing each other outside of school.

Stiles is actually mostly okay with that.  He spends most of that time with his leg in a cast, and he has the white room to think about.

He doesn’t know if he really died both times.

He wonders what would happen if he opens the other door.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

The third time he dies, it… isn’t an accident.  The third time is when something in Stiles breaks, something mental or maybe emotional, something irreparable once broken.

Stiles is eight.  A few months back, his dad finally told him that his mom is sick in the head and won’t ever get better, and his dad only told him that because Stiles’ mom yelled at Stiles for being too loud when he laughed at something on the TV one afternoon, and then she locked him in the cellar until Stiles’ dad came home and found him.

(Stiles cried for his mother for an hour that day.  He had his watch on, the one that lights up with the push of a button, so he could see the time even in the cold darkness of the cellar.  He tried apologizing even though he wasn’t quite sure what he did wrong, but his mother never let him out.  He was completely silent by the time his dad came home five hours later and practically tossed the house to find him when he realized his son wasn’t in his bedroom.  Stiles’ mom wouldn’t say where she put him, and Stiles himself didn’t say another word for a week.)

He’s at home with his mother when it happens.  He tries to keep out of her way as much as possible now, checking regularly to see if she needs water or food or her medicine or anything else but generally staying in his bedroom the rest of the time, using his earphones to listen to his music as he did his homework or read a book.  Legend of Zelda is always on mute if he plays.

He makes the mistake of falling asleep that day.  He’s been more tired lately, worried about his mom, and maybe a little scared of her too, and the stress at home makes it even harder to concentrate at school, but he needs to keep his grades up so his dad can focus on work and Stiles’ mom.

So he falls asleep when he comes home after school, and he only jolts awake again – arms and legs already thrashing wildly – when he feels like he can’t breathe because there’s something soft but too solid covering his face and slowly suffocating him.

 _A pillow_ , Stiles realizes with increasing panic even as dark spots begin creeping into his vision.  He claws futilely at the hands holding the pillow down and blocking his mouth and nose.

He can’t breathe.  His fingers scrabble uselessly one last time before they flop limply back to his side.

The last thing he hears is his mom hissing, “You can’t hurt me now, you _monster_.”

And then nothing.

 

* * *

 

He’s back in the white room.  This time, he doesn’t think about going back immediately.  Instead, he curls up into a ball against the only wall he can ever reach and cries, big ugly baby tears that Jackson would definitely laugh at him for.

His mom killed him.  He doesn’t know why, but she called him a monster, and she killed him.

Which means Stiles is dead.  Which also means Stiles has died twice before.  And this is the place he goes to after he dies.

He cries until he can’t cry anymore.  Then he scrubs a sleeve over his face before sitting up and looking around.

Everything is still white.  Stiles wonders if everyone ends up here, and then he dismisses that idea.  If anybody could simply choose to come back from the dead, it would be public knowledge, and death wouldn’t be something most people seem to be afraid of.

He remembers the first time he died.  That memory’s a little fuzzy since he was only four, and it’s been four years since then, but he knows he walked for hours in this white room, only to return to life not even ten minutes after he… died.

So time passes differently here.  That’s kinda cool.  This place is very white and very dull, but it’s… it seems to be _his place_ , and that in itself is nice.  It’s like his own little world after death.

Or maybe between life and death?  Because…

He chews on his lip for a long, pensive minute, and then – very clearly in his mind – he pictures a fork in the road, one for _going back, going home_ , and the other for _moving on_.

On to what, he doesn’t know, but it seems to be enough because – like magic – the black doors appear, and this time, neither of them really pulls at him.

So he gets to his feet and goes to the door on the right this time.

He doesn’t open it.  He isn’t _that_ stupid; he has a pretty good idea of what would happen if he does.

But he lays one hand on the flat surface, and he thinks it’s cool to the touch.  The door doesn’t seem to be made of wood, but Stiles doesn’t know what it _is_ made of.

He lets his fingers graze the silver handle.  It feels even colder than the door, but it isn’t a _bad_ sort of cold.  It’s a bit like… the chill of a windowpane on winter days whenever Stiles presses his nose against one to see the snow.

He steps away, turning to the door on the left.

He supposes he should go back now.

Hopefully, his mom isn’t still smothering him.

 

* * *

 

She isn’t.  In fact, she’s gone when Stiles opens his eyes to his bedroom ceiling.

He lies there for a while.  He’s in no hurry to find his mother.

Two hours later, when his dad comes home, Stiles is the only one who truly understands why his mother’s eyes widen when she catches sight of him, and she starts screaming about the monster coming to get her.

He doesn’t explain it to his dad.  What would he say anyway?  His mother killed him and he came back to life because he wanted to?  Even if his father does believe him and doesn’t think he’s going as crazy as his mom, Stiles has watched enough movies to know what happens to people who aren’t normal.

His mom is mentally ill, but she still called him a monster even before she killed him.  Maybe she knew about the other two times, and that’s why.

Whatever the reason, Stiles isn’t about to blurt out his secret to his dad too.  Besides, his dad has enough to worry about with Stiles’ mother.  Stiles’ secret doesn’t really hurt anyone so there’s no harm in keeping it to himself.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

Number four and number five both happen at home as well.  Stiles is nine now but his birthday passed without anyone saying anything because Scott was down with the flu and stuck in bed, Stiles’ dad forgot his birthday between work and his wife, and Stiles’ mom forgot she had a son entirely.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, and he says it’s okay when Stiles’ dad apologizes the very next day.

It’s okay.  He’s okay.

Stiles’ mother still lives at home.  His dad is reluctant to have her committed to the psychiatric ward the way Stiles overhears the doctor suggesting, so for now, she stays.

Maybe if his dad wasn’t so reluctant, Stiles wouldn’t have died twice more.

He’s taking a bath when number four happens.  He thought his mother was asleep, which is why he decided on bubbles today.  It’s childish perhaps, because he’s already nine, but it’s _bubbles_.  Who the heck doesn’t like bubbles in a comfortably hot tub of water?

But not ten minutes in, the door is slammed open, and Stiles’ heart leaps into his throat.  He only has time to twist around and catch a glimpse of his mother’s long brown hair before hands grab his hair and thrusts him under the soapy water.

By some miracle, Stiles doesn’t immediately inhale when water closes over his head so abruptly, and he’s fighting his mother’s grip before he’s consciously aware of it.  But she doesn’t budge, only forcing him under further, and Stiles can’t see anything but a murky blur.

His lungs begin to burn.  His arms and legs feel heavier than ever.  He bites down on his tongue and uses the last of his energy to try and fight his mother off of him.

It doesn’t work.  His head feels a second away from exploding.

He thinks of the white room waiting for him.

And he lets go.

Water fills his mouth, his lungs.  His mind goes fuzzy, and everything stops hurting even though he knows he’s not breathing anymore.

The fourth time he dies is the first time he thinks, _dying isn’t so bad_.

Because it isn’t.  Because as he drifts away on a gentle current of all-consuming darkness, all he feels is complete and utter relief.

 

* * *

 

He’s lying spread-eagled on the floor of the white room when he opens his eyes.  He doesn’t move for a while.  He just stares up at the ceiling, and he wonders how long he can stay in this place before he absolutely has to go back.

It’s nice here, peaceful in a way that his life hasn’t been in almost two years.  His mom isn’t shouting at him, he doesn’t have to put up with Jackson and his minions, and even his dad isn’t around to all but forget Stiles as he rushes around to care for Stiles’ mother when he isn’t at work.

Stiles sits up.  He shouldn’t think that way.  Most of the time, he doesn’t.  He understands.  His mom is very sick, and even the doctor has pulled him aside to explain that his mother might act like a completely different person sometimes.

‘Sometimes’ is rapidly turning into ‘most of the time’.  The times when Stiles’ mom is still _Stiles’ mom_ are far and few in-between, and Stiles hates it.

He scrubs a hand through his hair, still feeling the phantom of his mother’s rough manhandling.  He flushes when he finally realizes he’s completely naked, but there’s no one else around, and it never gets cold here, so he adjusts soon enough.

The doors are missing; Stiles doesn’t bother calling them yet. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries calling something else to him.  He’s thought about this a lot since the last time he died.  If this room is his, and he can call those doors at will, then maybe he can call other things to him.

Then again, maybe calling the doors is just part of the process of going back or going on since he seems to be stuck in limbo.

It doesn’t hurt to try though.

He thinks of his Calvin and Hobbes comics on his bookshelves, focusing on _It's a Magical World_ , and then he peeks open one eye and crows out loud when he finds the book right in front of him.

He glances down at himself and hastily thinks up his Spiderman boxers and a blanket to lie on.  Both appear.  It looks like he doesn’t have to own the item to call it here because the blanket is definitely not something he possesses but he thinks he’s seen it at IKEA.

Then he settles down and reads about Calvin and Hobbes’ childhood adventures for the next few hours.  During that time, he also summons a can of coke and curly fries, and they both taste like the real thing.

This place is more amazing than the Room of Requirement.

And with a room like this, he doesn’t really want to go home.  But he thinks he’d miss Scott if he stayed here forever, and he’d miss his parents too, even his mom when she’s in her right mind, so he goes.

He’s still in the bath when he wakes up.  The water is lukewarm at best.

He washes up, creeps down the hall to make sure his mother has gone to bed and that there’s a fresh glass of water on the nightstand, and then he goes to bed.

His dad has a night shift and doesn’t come home.

The next day, Stiles walks himself to the barber’s and comes out with a buzz cut.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

He’s still nine for number five, almost ten.  He tries harder than ever to stay out of his mom’s way, to not even look at her because she tends to scream if she thinks he’s staring.  He can tell Melissa is getting worried about the bags under his eyes whenever she sees him because she starts suggesting more sleepovers with Scott.  Scott of course is always happy to have Stiles over for the night.

But it isn’t as if Stiles can stay over every night, and his dad sometimes insists on him staying home to keep his mother company.  Just once, Stiles whispers back, “But she forgets who I am sometimes.  She’ll try to kill me.”

His dad reels back like Stiles punched him or something, and Stiles instantly feels bad.

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that, Stiles!”  His father scolds, looking bleak and angry at the same time.  “She’s your mother!”

He takes a deep breath, and his expression becomes weary instead.  “I know it can be tough when she doesn’t- when she doesn’t remember you but you have to be strong for her, okay?  We both do.”

And that’s the end of that.  Stiles never mentions it again.

As it turns out, he doesn’t really have to.

His mother pushes him down the stairs when his dad’s in the kitchen, and Stiles breaks his neck – again – at the bottom.  He doesn’t like that funny burning sensation at his neck, but at least it doesn’t last long, and at the tail end of his dying breath, he’s drawing his next in the white room once more.

He knows he probably shouldn’t stay as long as last time, not with his dad in the house.  Still, he can’t help lingering here, where there’s no one he needs to be strong for and no one he needs to fear.

No one he needs to act okay for.

He pictures a beanbag chair, grinning when a _huge_ blue one that makes a _whump_ sound when he jumps onto it appears.  It only takes a thought for four more beanbag chairs to join them – green, red, purple, and orange – and already, the white room looks infinitely less dull.

Scott would like this place, Stiles muses, but he doesn’t try summoning his best friend.  Somehow, that strikes him as a bad idea, and he doesn’t think it would work anyway.  The last time he was here, he thought briefly of wanting a dog because he’s always wanted a dog, but no dog appeared, so maybe living things can’t be brought into a death room.

Which makes sense.

Either way, he isn’t going to try with Scott, and this place is… this place is _Stiles’_.  He loves Scott, but this is one secret he doesn’t really want to share.  Maybe that makes him a bad friend but he’ll make it up to Scott some other way.

Stiles only stays for a while longer, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if he could paint it.  True, he could probably just change it to a different colour with the power of his mind but where would be the fun in that?

He’d need a ladder.  And a lot of paint.

But it could be fun.

 

* * *

 

When he opens his eyes, he’s alive again and lying in a hospital bed with only the steady beep-beep of a machine at his side.  It’s irritating.

There are bandages wrapped around his head but his neck is fine.  He feels a bit banged up but he’s used to that now.  He’s pretty sure it’s only the fatal injuries that mysteriously disappear; everything else remains.

He’s at the hospital though, which means his dad must have brought him here.

He wonders if his dad brought his mom here as well.

(He hopes he did.  Maybe that makes him a bad son too.)

 

* * *

 

The first time Stiles sees his dad after waking up in the hospital, the man’s eyes are bloodshot and frantic when he rushes in and wraps Stiles in a hug, and Stiles’ shoulders hunch with guilt at having caused that.

“You know she didn’t mean to, right?”  His dad asks after the tears and apologies are out of the way.  “Your mother loves you.”

Stiles nods.  Of course he knows.

The thing is, most of the time, his mother isn’t his mother anymore.

A nurse comes and calls for his dad, something about his mom, along with a meaningful look at Stiles as if Stiles is _still_ too young to hear about ‘adult’ stuff.

Stiles hates it when grownups do that.

His dad rises to his feet but hesitates for a moment, looking at Stiles.  And in that moment, Stiles knows exactly what he’s thinking.

_Has your mother done anything like this before?_

In the end, his dad doesn’t ask, hurrying away with the nurse instead.

It doesn’t matter.  _No_ was on the tip of Stiles’ tongue anyway.  He isn’t quite sure why that would’ve been his answer, hiding every incident where she’s laid a hand on him, resulting in harsh words that he can’t un-hear, or pain he has to hide, or outright death that makes his mother go bug-eyed and crazier every time she sees him again afterwards.

Maybe it’s to protect his mom from being completely locked up without even being allowed visitors.  Or maybe it’s to protect his dad from the truth.

(Deep down, he suspects it’s mostly just to protect himself, because let’s be honest – no one else is going to do it for him.)

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

The sixth time is self-inflicted, and Stiles is ten.  It won’t be the last time.

He’s been able to break into his dad’s office safe at home since he was seven.  He was curious.  He’s never liked being kept out of anything.

There’s a handgun inside.  His dad sat him down and taught him about gun safety when he was five, and has repeated it quite a few times since then, so Stiles knows how not to accidentally shoot himself.

Likewise, he also knows how to shoot himself on purpose.

It’s been a bad day.  Scott had detention at lunch so Stiles spent his alone, but then Jackson came along and announced to the whole playground that Stiles’ mom is crazy and Stiles must have her crazy and should be locked up like she is and everyone should stay away from him if they don’t want to catch it too.

When Stiles doesn’t feel like he’s constantly two seconds away from shattering into a million broken pieces, he’s going to make Jackson Whittemore pay.

But on top of that, Stiles just visited his mother in the psychiatric ward again yesterday, and it didn’t go well.  She took one look at him and started shrieking about how he was a monster because he just _wouldn’t die_ and he was going to kill her one day.

His dad took him home and told him they could try again later, and then he left for the hospital again.  Stiles hasn’t seen him since.  He ate dinner alone, and he went to bed alone, and he got up alone, and he made his own breakfast and packed his own lunch before walking to school alone.

He doesn’t know why he ever thought walking to and from school by himself like the big kids do was fun.

And now he’s home again, and he’s still alone.  It doesn’t look like his dad’s even stopped by, and Stiles hasn’t received any texts about whether or not he should put together a dinner for two so he guesses that he’ll be microwaving food for one again.  It’s not the first time his dad is too busy to come home for days on end.  Stiles is used to it.

But it’s still been a bad day, and there’s a gun in his dad’s safe, and he just really, _really_ wants to be anywhere but here, somewhere where the pain throbbing in his chest and clogging his throat doesn’t hurt so much.

It isn’t even that scary, lying under the blanket in his own bed and pressing the cold muzzle to his head.  His hand doesn’t shake, like they do when he’s trying to calm himself down from a panic attack.

And pulling the trigger is one of the easiest things he’s ever done in his entire short life.

There’s a bang, a flash of searing pain, a blink, and then he’s back in the white room, curled up in the soft blue beanbag chair.

He doesn’t move for a long time.  This chair is big enough for him to sprawl on, much less when he’s tucked into himself like he is.

It’s quiet here without the silence being deafening despite the fact that there was probably more noise in the emptiness of his house than here.  But here is certainly more peaceful.  He dozes off and doesn’t dream, and when he wakes up, he feels rested for the first time since his mother started trying to kill him.

He doesn’t want to go back yet so he experiments with the room.  He summons a bucket of dark green paint and a roller brush, and then he dabs the wall with it.

A smear of green remains, and Stiles grins with delight.

He doesn’t paint the whole wall, obviously.  He’s pretty sure he would never finish if he tried, and he doesn’t need a huge piece of wall to maintain anyway.  He thinks he wants bookshelves lined up against the wall later on though so he makes sure there’s enough room for at least five side by side.

He’s going to need a ladder after all.

He doesn’t finish painting that day.  He doesn’t know the time difference but he’s never stayed dead for more than a few hours at most, no matter how long he stays in this place.  Still, he should probably get back.  Since the beanbags stayed, not to mention the Calvin and Hobbes comic from before, he’s sure the paint will as well so he can finish it next time.

The doors appear as always when he’s ready to make his choice.

Stiles takes one last wistful glance at the room before opening the door on the left.

 

* * *

 

He had the foresight to lay down some towels, which is a good thing because there’s a violent splatter of blood by his head that the towels have managed to soak up, along with the innocent-looking bullet that went through his brain.

His head on the other hand is perfectly fine, if also sticky with blood.

The house is still silent and dark.  He puts his dad’s handgun away, not worried about getting caught even with a missing bullet.  His dad has never used this gun anyway; the thing is a backup piece for his backup piece.

Stiles goes to take a shower afterwards.  He doesn’t see his dad in person for another two days.  He’s Sheriff now.  Stiles is equal parts proud and… and something else.  Something that keeps him up way past any ten-year-old’s bedtime, watching the second hand on the clock tick by and wondering if his dad will come home and he’s just late, hour after hour until he can’t help nodding off into a restless slumber.

Nobody is any the wiser about what Stiles did.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

The seventh time is also self-inflicted.  Stiles is still ten, he uses the same method to kill himself, and there’s no particular reason aside from the usual – he tries to visit his mom, she screams at him and tries to claw his eyes out, rinse and repeat.

It’s been several months since the last time.  He needs another break, so he shoots himself in the head, and then he proceeds to finish painting his wall the way he wants it before summoning the bookshelves and a fluffy earth brown carpet to span the length of the room-within-a-room he’s created.

And then he begins conjuring all the books he owns in his real-life bedroom.  He’ll need to make a trip to the library later and see what he might want from there.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

Number eight is another accident.  Maybe.

Stiles is eleven.  Stiles’ mom is dead and she doesn’t come back the way Stiles can every time.  And his dad comes home maybe three nights a week, exhausted and still grieving, and he drinks until he passes out on the sofa.

Stiles tries to make things easier.  He cooks now, and he’s learned how not to burn the food.  He sets out the painkillers and a glass of water for his dad to down in the mornings after he stays the night, and he figures out how to wield a vacuum cleaner with super-efficiency.

He’s grieving too, but perhaps less than his dad because Stiles feels like he’s been grieving for his mom for so long that he’s forgotten what it was ever like to _not_ grieve.

He throws himself into taking care of his dad instead.  It helps him focus on living, on moving through each day, on plastering on a smile for Scott and helping the puppy with his homework.

It all becomes routine for Stiles.

The one mistake he makes is bringing up his dad’s growing drinking problem.  Stiles knows the word for it – _alcoholism_ – and he loathes the fear that gnaws at him when he has to watch his dad try to drink himself into an early grave.

Several times, he tries suggesting cutting back on the whiskey to his dad when the man is sober.  His dad just ruffles his hair and tells him not to worry before heading to work.

And then, one evening, when his dad is home and drunk and halfway through his third bottle of whiskey, Stiles says something stupid about it.  If he thought it through first, he probably wouldn’t have done it, but he’s exhausted and frustrated and stressed, and he just snaps and shouts, “Mom’s _dead_ and she’s never coming back and drinking yourself into a coma _isn’t gonna make her any less dead than she already is!_   She’d be _ashamed_ of you for- for wasting away like-”

He’s abruptly cut off when the Sheriff stumbles to his feet, expression twisting in drunken rage.  He yells something slurred and unintelligible, and before Stiles can blink, the whiskey bottle in the man’s hand goes flying straight at Stiles.

Stiles doesn’t even have time to _think_ about ducking.  His mind is already sluggish from lack of sleep.  Glass shatters against his head, agony flares, and then everything goes dark.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is probably the only person in existence who has been killed by both his parents and can live to talk about it if he so chooses.

He’s back in the white room.  Of course, the patch that he’s made a home in isn’t so white anymore but the landscape’s as blindingly white as it was the first time Stiles died.

He’s pretty sure he’s at least a little bit in shock.  He never expected his _dad_ to hurt him.

Of course, his dad wasn’t in his right mind either so maybe he should’ve expected it.

Stiles isn’t stupid.  He’s _smart_.  Even his teachers say so, that he’s _precocious_ despite his inability to focus at times.  He pulls straight A’s every term, enough said, and the only one who can match him and make it look effortless is Lydia Martin.

What he did wasn’t smart.  He’s researched alcoholics.  He’s researched alcohol.  Violent temperaments are hardly uncommon even in people who _don’t_ drink too much regularly, and Stiles even mouthed off because he was tired and angry and hurting too.

He should’ve just kept his mouth shut and only stepped in once his dad passed out, like always.

He wonders if he should hurry and go back.  He doesn’t want to wake up and find his dad still drunk and mad, but he doesn’t want to be taken to the hospital again either.

He’ll stay here for a while, he decides.  Maybe get started on _Lord of the Rings_.

He’s in no hurry to go back, even though he knows he has to eventually.

 

* * *

 

His dad is unconscious when Stiles stirs and pushes himself up.  There’s dried blood on his head and face.  His head wound is gone but there’s a gash just above his eye – from the smashed glass – that stings fiercely, especially when he blinks.

He’s lucky he’s not half-blind.

He cleans himself up.  He’s a pro at doing the laundry these days, and getting bloodstains out is standard procedure.

Then he sweeps up the glass and gathers the empty bottles for recycling before retrieving two painkillers and a glass of water, placing both on the coffee table beside the couch.  He grabs a blanket for his dad, makes sure he’s on his side so he won’t choke on the off-chance that he vomits in his drunken slumber, and then finally shuffles off to bed himself.

He keeps his head down the next morning, and his dad is nursing too big a hangover even with the painkillers to notice anything odd.  At school, Scott exclaims worriedly over the cut on Stiles’ face but Stiles assures him that he just tripped.

The Sheriff works late for the next four days, and by the time he does come home and sees Stiles again, the cut looks a lot better than it did four days ago, and Stiles babbles about a wrestling match with Scott during dinner, and that’s the end of that.

Stiles is very, very careful to lurk in the doorway of the living room from now on whenever he checks in on his dad while the man is drinking.

He’s learned his lesson well.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

After number eight, Stiles turns twelve without further domestic incidents.  Stiles’ dad gets worse, and then he gets better.  Kind of.  He still drinks, but he doesn’t get drunk as much.  About sixty-five percent of the time, he can be labelled _sober or not as sober as he could be_ instead of _drunk or not as drunk as he could be_.  He’s still what most people would probably call an alcoholic and a workaholic but he talks more with Stiles when he’s home, he even gives Stiles a one-armed hug when Stiles graduates from middle school and advances into high school with the second best grades in his year, and Stiles slowly teaches himself to be a little less wary around his dad again.

Stiles is twelve, and then he’s thirteen, and then fourteen, and then fifteen and going on sixteen.

In the span of those four years, he kills himself another sixty-two times.

 

* * *

 

At first, it’s about escape.  Maybe it’s always about escape, even after his dad stops either living at the station or living at the bottom of a bottle twenty-four/seven.

The white room is Stiles’ sanctuary now.  The fact that he has to die to get there is of little consequence to him.

He always chooses to go back though, to return to the world of the living.  He knows he’s still needed.  After all, what would his dad do without Stiles around to cook for him and nag him about his diet and remind him to take better care of himself?  How would Scott not end up homeless and alone without Stiles around to help him with his homework and protect him from Jackson and his jock buddies?

So he goes back, and the other door remains closed.

It’s tempting though.  Sometimes, Stiles finds himself wondering what’s really on the other side, wondering if maybe his mom – his real mom who loved him more than anything in the world – will be waiting for him.

But she’d never forgive him if he doesn’t protect his dad for as long as he can, so he tries to be a good son, and he looks after his dad to the best of his ability.

He gets tired though, tired of slogging through each day pretending to be okay when he’s pretty sure he’s not okay.

He thinks maybe some part of him is sick.  Depressed, though Stiles can’t figure out why.  Sure, his dad is no longer the man he used to be before Stiles’ mother fell sick, and he won’t ever be again, but Stiles has a great best friend, and they’ve joined lacrosse together, and practice is tough but still fun even though the two of them will probably ride the bench for the rest of eternity.  And school isn’t _enjoyable_ per se, but some of the things he learns are still interesting, and he and Scott even play the occasional prank on bullies who need to be taken down a peg or ten.  Also, he has Google and can learn whatever the hell he wants in his spare time.

Stiles’ life can be better – whose can’t? – but it isn’t _bad_ bad.  He’d bet there are thousands of other people who are worse off than Stiles; Stiles has a roof over his head and only ever goes hungry when he forgets to eat, still has a dad and a friend who’s like a brother and plenty of other stuff he should be grateful for, and yet…

And yet, Stiles isn’t happy.  He can’t remember the last time he was truly _happy_.  He gets dim flashes of the emotion when he’s chucking turtle shells at Scott during Mario Kart or eating dinner with a perfectly sober father or seeing Jackson Whittemore’s face when the douche opens his locker and inexplicably triggers a trap that ultimately gets him splattered with mud from head to toe.

But they’re just flashes.  Temporary mirth and momentary contentment that does nothing to get rid of the constant tightness in his gut and the heavy darkness that’s always lingering at the back of his mind.  He can’t even really describe it, but sometimes, he wakes up in the morning, and he can’t muster up the energy to even get out of _bed_ , much less go about his day like everything’s normal.

He skips school those days.  The school makes the mandatory phone call, but the number goes to the secretary’s desk at the police station instead of his dad’s phone because the man’s the Sheriff and can’t pick up the phone most days if it isn’t a 9-1-1 call or a direct call from Stiles’ cell.  The Sheriff trusts his secretary to pass on anything important about his son but Stiles won Janet over years ago and continues to bribe her with her favourite gelato whenever he drops by the station so she never tattles on him when he decides to play truant.

Besides, he doesn’t skip _that_ much.  Scott never likes it when Stiles isn’t at school because bullies seem to think it’s okay to pick on Scott if Stiles isn’t around to remind them why that’s a monumentally crappy idea.

That doesn’t mean Stiles is fine, of course.  Stiles is very rarely ever _fine_ , even when he goes to school and laughs and jokes and lectures his dad for eating pizza with too much meat on it.

The white room is a reprieve from all that.  Time never passes the same way between life and death, the only consistency being no matter how long Stiles stays dead, it’s never long enough for anyone to actually _see_ his dead body.

So it’s never difficult to put a bullet in his brain after school or even on a weekend morning after his dad leaves.

He keeps it at around once a month.  Occasionally twice.  Right after his mother died, mostly when Stiles was eleven and twelve, and his dad hit rock bottom and then kept on digging, it was more than that, but Stiles cut back after Scott complained about Stiles never coming over anymore, almost always hurrying straight home instead.

So once a month is better.  Once a month, when Stiles the Snarky Spaz Who is Totally One Hundred Percent Completely Fine starts wearing thin around the edges and just wants to curl up in a dark corner and disappear because the world is too much and he feels like he can’t breathe properly, he takes himself to the white room where there’s no one around to judge him, no one around to protect himself from, and he doesn’t have to be normal and responsible and _fine_.

Living isn’t as easy as it sounds, and the white room somehow makes everything _less_ , makes reality more distant and less substantial, and nothing hurts there.  Stiles can just curl up in a squishy chair and read or nap or experiment with different ways to bake various desserts.

He’s expanded his patch of territory to include a well-stocked kitchen.  He can still summon food if he doesn’t want to cook, but he’s _good_ at cooking, and it’s not like he can bake in the real world because his dad isn’t allowed anything with too much sugar.

And sometimes, he stays for what feels like days.  Oddly enough, or perhaps not, he can’t summon a clock in the white room, just like he can’t summon animals or even plants.  But he knows he stays longer and longer each time, and he never leaves until he feels like he can tolerate the next few weeks without falling apart or stepping out into oncoming traffic.

In four years, he dies sixty-two times.

And each one takes its toll.

By the time he realizes that, he no longer cares.

Maybe he never did.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is fourteen, and it’s Scott who inadvertently points it out.  They’re eating lunch outside, and Stiles is trying to hammer some math concepts into Scott’s head because the dude isn’t going to be able to graduate middle school come June without passing math, and it’s going to take a miracle because Scott’s eyes are already glazing over.

But then, out of the blue, he tilts his head and frowns at a spot next to Stiles’ right ear.  Stiles scowls.  “Dude, are you listening to me at all?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I just-” Scott’s frown deepens even as a puzzled expression colours his features.  “I just thought I saw something on your head.”

Stiles blinks and automatically raises a hand to prod at the side of his head.  Belatedly, he realizes that that’s where he usually shoots himself.  He has his own gun now, after he tracked down some… shady people downtown who are more than willing to sell a piece to a minor so long as they get money out of it, and Jet even gives him a small discount these days because he keeps going back to them to restock on bullets every few months.  Now that he has a weapon, he doesn’t _just_ use it to kill himself; he practices with it in the woods as well.

You never know when it might come in handy.

Scott is shaking his head.  “Never mind, there’s nothing there.”

Stiles stares at him.  “…What did it look like?”

Scott scratches his head.  “Like… a bruise maybe?  Darker than your hair.  Maybe kinda dark red?  But it must have just been a trick of the light.  Sorry.”  He offers hopeful puppy eyes.  “Can you go over Chapter Three again?”

Stiles rolls his eyes but nods with a sigh.

He’s distracted the rest of the day though, and when he gets home, he studies himself in the mirror for a long while, turning his head this way and that.

There really isn’t anything there but Stiles doesn’t believe in coincidence, and Scott…

His head doesn’t hurt.  He gets headaches sometimes but he’s pretty sure that’s from stress and a lack of a regular sleeping schedule, and he didn’t get one today anyway.

But if other people are getting… getting _afterimages_ of his injuries, then…

For the first time in years, Stiles thinks about what he’s doing to himself.

It doesn’t really make sense, does it?  This whole choice thing when it comes to him and death.  The existence of- of werewolves and vampires is more believeable.

And Stiles is the type of person who researches the hell out of anything he doesn’t understand, but he didn’t with this.

Maybe it’s because this is normal for him.  He’s been dying and coming back to life since he was four years old after all.

Or maybe it’s because – for once – he doesn’t want to know.  The white room is his special haven.  His secret.  It’s the place he goes to when he wants his dad to take care of him instead of the other way around.  The place nobody can bother him in when the popular kids at school get on one nerve too many and Stiles wants to wrap his hands around their throats and physically strangle the condescending superiority right out of them.

The place he takes refuge in when Stiles feels like he doesn’t _fit_ because he’s three steps too far to the left of where everyone else is and he wants to see the whole world _burn_ for it just so he can reshape what’s left in the end to something that doesn’t make him feel like he can’t breathe.

Stiles was probably born wrong.  Maybe that’s the problem.

Either way, he’s reckless when it comes to death.  Too careless by far.

Too addicted to the unique brand of peace that the white room provides.

And like all addicts, there will probably be consequences if he continues.

He knows he’ll continue anyway.

(Maybe he just wants to see how many times he can die before it’s permanent.)

(Maybe he just wants to see how many times he can die before he chooses the other door.)

 

* * *

 

Stiles does take precautions.  He isn’t an idiot.  Arguably.

Perhaps shooting himself too many times in the same spot is leaving a… an imprint of the fatal injury.

That’s easily solved.

So far, he’s used a gun because it’s quick.  A cocktail of pills and a bottle of Jack probably wouldn’t take much longer either, and it would probably be painless too, but that method is costly.  A lot of his mother’s various pills are still in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and – of course – he has his own pills for his ADHD, but those will run out fast, and then he’d have to go buy more, and drugs are never cheap, medicine or otherwise.

The flashier ways of committing suicide – like jumping off a cliff or throwing himself in front of a bus or hanging himself – are just dumb since he doesn’t want to cause a scene or even leave his room.  That pretty much only leaves slitting his wrists.

That’s bound to be painful but Stiles doesn’t really care about that anymore.  You can only die at the hands of your parents so many times before you become desensitized to physical pain.  It’s nothing compared to knowing your own mother considers you a monster or your own father is so far gone in his grief that he doesn’t even notice when he kills his only child.

So it’s not the pain he dislikes.  It’s that it takes even longer to wait for himself to bleed out, and the human body has a surprisingly large amount of blood to lose before death finally comes to call.  Stiles has done his research so he knows this stuff.

Still, if he’s leaving behind ghostly impressions of his suicides because he’s used his gun one too many times in the same spot, then slitting his wrists is the next best thing.  Even if that shows up over time, he’s used to wearing long-sleeves, and cuts on the wrists – no matter how clear – will be much easier to hide than a head wound.

Towels aren’t going to cut it though.

He hasn’t taken an actual bath since his mother drowned him but he supposes it’s safe to do so now that she’s not around anymore to ambush him.

His forearms throb when he slices them open for the first time, but the pain dulls as time passes, and it’s almost fascinating in a morbid sort of way to watch the water turn a cloudy red.

And when the end comes, it really does seem quicker and easier than falling asleep.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is fourteen going on fifteen, fifteen going on sixteen.

His wrists are smooth, but sometimes, when he’s coming out of the shower or wearing a t-shirt in the house, he catches glimpses of deep, unforgiving scars.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles dislikes Lydia Martin.

He loves the competition she gives him each term when they compete for the top spot.

But he doesn’t like the way she looks at him sometimes when she thinks he doesn’t notice, a partly perplexed, partly disturbed sort of frown gracing her delicate features as she stares at his head.

When he turns to look back at her though, she sniffs and turns away with a flip of her hair.

So he uses that.  He pretends to grow a crush on her.  He announces it for the world to hear, endures Scott’s good-natured ribbing, tells his dad about his ten-year plan to make Lydia fall for him, and generally does his utmost to get Beacon Hills’ most popular teenage girl to acknowledge him because he knows her type well – a genius but vain and self-centered and subtly manipulative to remain queen of the masses with her pretty face and money and status as one-half of BHHS’ power couple, and she thinks Stiles – so low on the social totem pole – is beneath her, so the more he tries to grab her attention, the more she ignores his very existence.

As a bonus, Stiles’ clumsy but public and quite possibly embarrassing-on-a-secondhand-scale flirting also makes Jackson look about two seconds away from popping a vein whenever he’s within hearing distance.

As far as tactics go, it’s a simple but rather brilliant one, and seeing how far he can push Jackson before the guy spontaneously combusts is one of the few highlights left in Stiles’ life.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

That’s how his childhood passes.  He feels older than his years, and not just in maturity.  Death is timeless, especially in the white room, and he doesn’t age there, but he tends to read multiple books, bake a cake, sleep, and pick up random new hobbies, and whatever he gains in the white room follows him back to life.

It makes the grey monotony of living a little better.  He even bakes Melissa a birthday cake when he’s fifteen, and she and Scott compete for the last piece.

“You can learn anything on the internet,” He says when they ask him where he learned how to bake, which is technically true.

Then his dad asks him if _he_ could have a cake on his birthday.

“I’ll make one with less sugar,” Stiles promises, eyeing the pink, mostly eaten heart attack on the McCall dining table.

The Sheriff groans.  “You’re going to kill me with all this health crap, Stiles.”

Scott and Melissa laugh.  Stiles joins in and pretends he understands the joke.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

He’s firmly between fifteen and sixteen when it happens for the first time.

The death of a little girl getting killed in a hit-and-run makes front-page news.  The street it happened on is along the route that Stiles takes when he goes to school, and the area isn’t blocked off anymore so he doesn’t have to take a detour.

When he turns onto the sidewalk of that street, it’s as if the world’s suddenly been tossed through the washing machine too many times.  Everything becomes tinged with a layer of grey as colour becomes muted, and then there’s a car speeding down the street, and a little mousy-haired girl wandering out onto the street without so much as a glance either way like she thinks she’s immortal, and Stiles watches wide-eyed and frozen in place as brakes squeal right before plowing straight into the kid with a solid _thump_ that somehow sounds… squishy.

Stiles blinks, and the last thing he sees before the world trips back into present time again is the smear of washed out crimson on the asphalt and a weedy-looking man with a balding head and a nervous expression sticking his head out of the driver’s window before taking off like a bat out of hell.

Stiles stands there for a long few minutes, gaze focused on a street that’s been scrubbed of any blood.

And then he goes to school.

When he gets back home, he Googles the license plate and tracks down the perpetrator’s address.

Then he calls it in as an anonymous tip.

Warren Owens is arrested three days later.

 

* * *

 

Stiles starts sticking his nose into his dad’s cases, sneaking into crime scenes whenever he can.

His dad is exasperated and annoyed and even handcuffs Stiles into the back of the cruiser a couple times, which Stiles loathes because it makes him feel trapped.

He doesn’t see something every time – only the more violent murders – but some of the extra tired creases on his dad’s face disappear even if he still sleeps at the station sometimes rather than at home.

That’s enough for Stiles to keep lending a hand.  The mysterious tipster of Beacon Hills becomes pretty well-known amongst law enforcement.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

And then Stiles is sixteen.  Sixteen years old and ever-growing and still dying.

He has already died seventy-eight times.

But he’s sixteen, almost a legal adult, half-heartedly studying for future SATs, solving crimes by watching them happen after they’ve happened, and considering going to culinary school instead of regular university after he graduates.

He’s sixteen, and that’s when Beacon Hills promptly decides to stop being boring and go to hell in a handbasket instead.

 

* * *

 

Stiles knows who the rogue Alpha is before anyone else, mostly because he sees the memory of Peter Hale – scarred and broken and half out of his mind with grief-driven madness – meeting his niece and what should’ve been his Alpha again for the first time in six years.

Peter wants revenge.  Laura refuses to even hear his reasons.  Negotiations fall apart from there and end with Laura getting her throat torn out.

Later, Stiles goes to the crumbling shell of the Hale house.  He stands there and watches most of the Hale family burn.  He watches Kate Argent run, sadistic triumph written all over her face.  And he watches Peter’s flesh roast and blacken as the werewolf tries to save his family.

Stiles makes it as far as the weeds on the side of the road leading into the Preserve before he throws up.

 

* * *

 

He tells no one who the rogue Alpha is.  Vengeance is something Stiles can understand.  And Peter’s brand of ruthless loyalty in the wake of his Pack’s murder – even after all these years – is one of the few things that makes _sense_ to him in this world.

An eye for an eye.  It’s the oldest law on the planet.

And between teaching Scott control, tracking him down when he freaks out about being furry, covering for him when he's sneaking around with Allison because her parents don't approve, and suppressing the urge to stab Derek in the eye because the werewolf keeps shoving him around and basically trying to make him _submit_ , Stiles finds himself putting aside his knife and focusing on the living.

There’s research to be done, and he could do that in the white room of course, but he doesn’t think he can afford to check out for even a few hours with the sudden danger that’s now plaguing this town in the form of supernatural creatures and hunters.

So he stays alive, does his best to keep Scott alive when the idiot isn’t swooning over Allison, and drops by the hospital, stands in the doorway of Peter’s hospital room for a minute, and studies the supposed comatose patient who doesn’t move but looks out at his surroundings – almost looks at _Stiles_ – with enough rage to tear the world apart.

Stiles knows the feeling.

( _His mother didn’t **mean** to.  His father didn’t **mean** to._

 _That didn’t mean they didn’t make Stiles want to rage and rage and rage at the unfairness of it all until he destroyed himself with the fury of his resentment and took the rest of the world with him, just so he wouldn’t have to hurt anymore._ )

He smiles a little, and when he enters the room, he senses more than sees the tension gathering in the line of Peter’s shoulders.

He says nothing.  Instead, he leaves a slip of paper folded in half on the nightstand before taking his leave.

The addresses of Garrison Meyers, Adrian Harris, and three hunters under the Argents’ command that are all currently in town with Kate are scrawled on it, along with the parts they played in the Hale fire, just in case.

It’s both a gift and a peace offering.

_Please don’t kill Scott._

Two days later, the bodies begin turning up one by one, viciously mauled every time.

 

* * *

 

But Kate Argent is still sniffing around.  Jackson’s jealousy is showing.  The latter is mildly amusing.  The former is much more worrying.

Stiles meets Kate once, when she comes to pick up Allison from school.  He never wants to again.  There are ghosts on her shoulders – so many ghosts – jumbled together to form a whispering, blood-soaked, clinging mass of sins.

Stiles doesn’t know how she doesn’t feel them.  He can make out vague shapes of arms and legs and even individual faces, but they swirl together like smoke, and every time he blinks, he loses whatever face he was looking at.

That doesn’t matter.  The things they say are clear enough.

_“I’mfromtheLowryPack.We’reallgone.” “TheAbelPackinWyoming.Shegoteveryoneexceptmyson.” “Hale.I’maHale.Daniel.IwasTaliaandPeter’sbrother.Ihadbeautifultwindaughtersandoneofthemwashuman.” “IwastheHaywoodPack’sAlpha.TheArgentsslaughteredmyPack.Mymatewashuman.Wedidnothingwrongbuttheyhuntedusdownanyway.”_

And so on and so forth.  Stiles has never been more glad to leave school than he was that day.

So that’s what it’s like to meet a psychopathic serial killer.  Stiles has no desire to shake hands with Gerard.

But he got names out of it.  More than enough names and allegations to start putting the pieces together, to dig up cases that have long gone cold and link them back to Kate and Gerard and a slew of other hunters that subscribed to their doctrine of killing every werewolf out there, guilty of breaking the Code or otherwise.

And now, it’s been over two months since this all began.  Scott rarely answers his texts from Stiles anymore; Allison takes up all his time, and Stiles is forgotten.  Stiles’ dad is busy at the station, trying to solve the ‘animal attacks’.  Stiles has finished his homework, compiled a file (and two backup copies) full of evidence that will convict Kate Argent _and_ Gerard Argent to kingdom come and then some, and there’s a familiar unwelcome itch under his skin that means the world is getting too loud – too much – again.

The Sheriff hasn’t come home in several days now.  He’s been exuding his displeasure since he caught Stiles out in the woods, so even when he _is_ home, Stiles feels like drowning himself until he can breathe again.

He hasn’t slept in nearly a week.  His mother keeps turning up and trying to claw his eyes out, screeching at Stiles about how she wished he’d never been born.

It’s not really a dream.  It’s a memory.

He’s in his bedroom now, sitting on the edge of his bed with his gun dangling from his fingers.  The window is open behind him to let the night breeze in but Stiles still feels too hot and too cold and like his skin is too tight for him.

A bullet to the head is still his favourite way to go, quick and… okay, not that clean, but clean enough, and easy to mop up when he comes back.

His dad won’t be home again.  At least he texted.

And Scott probably won’t even notice Stiles’ absence tonight, what with him attending the winter formal with Allison.  Stiles didn’t go; he’s not in the mood for partying, and he has no wish to spend the entire evening in the company of some girl that he probably has a shit-ton of dirt on but has barely shared five words with.

Dear sweet Allison did try to set him up with Lydia but Stiles just might off himself in front of the redhead for her horrified expression alone if he had to spend his night being used and ordered around by Lydia Martin all to make her arrogant douchebag of a boyfriend jealous.

Bottom line though, Stiles isn’t needed tonight, and probably not anytime soon either.

So, he can go.

 _Finally_.

Everyone and their dog know where the Sheriff lives so nobody really thinks anything of it when they hear gunshots from this house.  It’s the Sheriff, people think if they hear anything.

Nobody calls the police on the Sheriff.

Hell, half the time, nobody calls the police, period, choosing instead to turn a blind eye and walk away.  Or record the incident and post it on youtube.

Such is human nature.

Stiles sighs, soft and drained, before flopping back to lie on the bed with his head on the towels.

He lifts his gun.

And when he pulls the trigger, he could swear he hears a guttural growl sound from somewhere above his head just as the gun goes off with a ringing bang.

 

* * *

 

He blinks, and he’s back in the white room.  He practically melts into the beanbag chair underneath him, feeling at home in his own skin for the first time in over two months.

He stretches lazily before wriggling onto his side to view the rest of his patch of the room.

The painted wall spans ten bookshelves now, filled to the brim with hardcovers and paperbacks, manuscripts of plays he was curious about during his theatre phase, cookbooks and notebooks of his own recipes, and even a handful of rough wooden figurines.  He’s been trying his hand at carving recently.  He’ll have to get back to that if he wants to get better.

First though, he needs some sleep.  He hasn’t gotten a full night’s rest since he found half a body in the woods.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is just about to climb into his car and head down to the supermarket for groceries when he hears footsteps and turns to see Scott pounding pavement towards him.

“Stiles!”  He hollers even before he reaches the house.  “You’re okay!  You wouldn’t believe what happened yesterday!”

And that’s how Stiles gets the story of how the winter formal at their local high school turned into a night of murder on the Hale property.

“Peter’s _dead?_ ”  Stiles repeats, stunned.

“Yeah, Allison kept one of Lydia’s Molotov cocktails, and we managed to set him on fire,” Scott confirms with a sigh of relief, not noticing the subtle blanch that flickers across Stiles’ face.  He scowls instead.  “But Derek’s the Alpha now.  He killed Peter-”

“You lit him on fire, and then Derek killed his uncle?”  Stiles repeats, and he doesn’t know why he’s so stuck on that.  He’s never even talked to Peter.  They met back when Stiles visited the guy way back when nobody else even knew Peter could move, and that was it.

But there’s… dear god, is that _disappointment_ coiling in his chest?

Ugh, it’s awful.

“Well, yeah,” Scott frowns a little.  “He killed so many people.”

“They deserved it,” Stiles retorts before he can censor himself.

“Stiles!”  Scott looks scandalized.  “Peter was a bad guy!  He Bit me!  And he killed his own niece!”

Stiles’ lips thin.  “Look, I’m not saying he was right to Bite you, especially since he didn’t even ask.  But he wasn’t exactly in his right mind either, and that’s because Derek and Laura left him to rot.  He lost his entire pack in one go, and then he spent six years in a hospital bed, paralyzed and stuck in his own head with nothing but his family’s deaths to keep him company, and you don’t convict someone acting under PTSD and temporary insanity because his own _family_ never got him proper treatment.  _I_ would’ve killed Kate if she locked you and my dad and Melissa up in a house and burnt it down.  And laws in the supernatural world are harsher and simpler than in the regular world.  Kate should’ve been executed by the Hale Pack for what she did.  What _Peter_ did to her was his _right_ -”

He cuts himself off.  He’s getting too loud.  And Scott is staring at him with open-mouthed incredulity.

Stiles doesn’t blame him.  He can’t remember the last time he defended anyone who wasn’t Scott so vehemently.

What is wrong with him today?

“Never mind,” Stiles mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.  He scoffs.  “I can’t believe _Derek_ of all people killed him.”

“I- What-” Scott splutters as Stiles ducks into his jeep.

“By the way,” Stiles tacks through the open window.  “Once you’re turned, there’s no turning back.  So even if you had killed Peter, you would’ve stayed a werewolf.  Trust me; I’ve done my research.”

He doesn’t add that all Scott would’ve ended up with was a life on his hands.

Scott _already_ has a life on his hands after last night, even if he wasn’t the one who delivered the final blow.

“I have grocery-shopping to do,” Stiles informs him abruptly.  “I’ll see you later, dude.”

He leaves before either of them can say anything else.

 

* * *

 

Kate Argent was more or less the mastermind behind the Hale fire, but it was Gerard who pointed her in the Hale Pack’s direction, and Stiles has dug deep enough to nail them both for premeditated murder.

On multiple counts.  The Hales weren’t the first family of werewolves that Kate – much less Gerard – went after.  Stiles can connect Kate to two other massacres in two other states, and he can connect Gerard to three of his own, plus two of the three that Kate was mainly responsible for.  He’s certain that Gerard at least has racked up more kills than just those, but those are the ones Stiles has managed to – admittedly largely illegally – scrounge up enough evidence for to put together a case against both of them.

Stiles didn’t even know Peter.

Except he did.  Maybe.  He looked at Peter and saw someone he _recognized_ , where others only saw a monster.  Perhaps that makes Stiles a monster too.

But that’s neither here nor there anymore.  Peter’s dead.  Kate’s dead.  And Stiles doesn’t have to – he doesn’t owe anybody anything – but he’s gathered enough evidence to put Gerard’s wrinkly ass on death row, as well as get the rest of the Argent family blacklisted by the Tribunal for the actions of two of their own and several dozen of those who work under the Argents’ authority, and there’s no reason for Stiles to _not_ fuck that psycho family over.

Allison isn’t a hunter to begin with; she’ll be fine.  And so long as Chris and Victoria’s hands are clean, they’ll ride out the investigation as well with only their pride injured and quite possibly their hunter licenses revoked.

This should be fun.

 

* * *

 

Not even a month later, the Beacon Hills’ police department has called in the FBI, and the town is buzzing with excitement because the Argent case is promising to finally close at least two dozen different unsolved murder cases all across the country.

Stiles follows it from his laptop.  No news channel goes a day without announcing an update on the Argent case for the public masses.

He’s immensely satisfied with his handiwork.  Isn’t it just lovely when everything comes together all because Stiles was pulling the strings from the shadows?

Allison’s cried a few times; Scott’s at her side almost twenty-four/seven as the supportive boyfriend.  Derek’s been going around Biting every emotionally vulnerable teenager he could find, and they’ve turned into self-absorbed dicks overnight.  There have been whispers about the boys taking steroids, and Erica's tormenting all her past bullies and even some random students who've never bullied anyone their entire lives any chance she gets. She even tries it on _him_ once, cornering him at his jeep and hitting him with the door before attempting to throw him in a nearby dumpster. She probably didn't expect Stiles to hit back, but Stiles doesn't give a fuck that she's a girl or a former bully victim. Nobody touches Roscoe and gets away with it. She goes down with a screech of pain when Stiles twists in her grip and manages to slam the door shut on her arm, breaking it with a nasty crack, and then he hightails out of there while she's still writhing on the ground. He comes away from that scuffle with a concussion and an ugly bruise at his temple, but on the bright side, Erica stays away from him after that, still strutting around school with Boyd and Isaac but going after easier prey instead.

Frankly, Stiles is going to be amazed if any of them lives past twenty with the way they flaunt their new assets like they think being a werewolf makes them gods.  But it’s none of his business, and they’re not his friends, so he doesn’t bother warning them.  That’s Derek’s job, and honestly, it’s not like they’d listen to him anyway.

The Tribunal – as far as Stiles can tell – is taking a sit-back-and-wait approach.  Apparently, they’re perfectly content to see the Argents dragged through the mud all over the States and even in France before they come in and drag them through the mud a second time to finish them off.

It hardly makes a difference.  The word is out – the Argents are Codeless hunters.  It doesn’t matter if only part of that family was to blame; the entire clan will take the fall, and when this is all over, every werewolf out there will have grounds to kill them if any Argent or a hunter connected to the Argents so much as waves a knife at them ever again.

Gerard’s already been arrested, and the court’s _still_ trying him for his damningly long rap sheet.  Victoria Argent’s being detained until they can prove she’s one hundred percent innocent, which doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.  She’ll probably get a few years in jail, minimum.

Chris Argent is the only one with any sort of freedom, which – admittedly – surprises Stiles, considering the fact that the guy was raised by Gerard too, but Chris can’t step out of his house anymore without being bombarded by reporters.  Last time Stiles saw him, the guy looked like he hadn’t slept since the night Peter died.

Stiles would feel sorry for them but… well, he’s never been the type to feel sorry for anyone, and he isn’t about to start now.  Besides, they deserve everything they’re getting.  The only way this could be better is if Allison isn’t getting caught in the crossfire, and if Kate was also alive to suffer for her crimes too.

Death was too good for her.

The police are handling everything now; Stiles has no need to interfere anymore.  A deputy’s stepped out on TV and publicly offered Beacon Hills’ unknown tipster a consultation job with them.

Stiles actually had a good laugh over that when he heard about it.

He hums now as he fills the bath with hot water.  His knife glints on the bathroom counter.

The only cloud on the horizon right now is the kanima running rampant through town at night.  Stiles is ninety-nine percent sure that it’s Jackson, which makes it Not Stiles’ Problem.  Derek Bit him (God only knows why), so Derek can take responsibility.

Stiles strips and slides into the bath with the knife.

He pauses briefly as he raises one wrist to eye-level.

The eerie imprint of several fatal gouges meshed together stare back at him.

He huffs another laugh, humourless and perhaps a little sad.  His eyes sting in a way they haven’t since before his mother died.

He plunges the knife into his wrist.

He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Stiles sees when he opens his eyes in the white room is someone standing by one of his bookshelves, a wooden cat figurine cradled in his hands.

Stiles’ breath hitches.  The person spins around, eyes a vivid electric blue, nostrils flared.

Stiles can’t breathe.

This is _his place.  HIS.  What is this **intruder doing here?**_

“Get away from my stuff!”  Stiles snarls, and he’s at the intruder’s side in the blink of an eye and swiping back the sculpture, teeth bared in sheer fury, blood pounding in his ears.

He’s seeing red.

“What are you doing here?!”  Stiles shouts, and his hands are white-knuckled and trembling.  “This is _my home!_ GET _OUT!!_ ”

Some part of him thinks he’s overreacting for absolutely no plausible reason.  But he’s suddenly _so angry_.  This is his home, his refuge, the place where he’s supposed to be safe, and there’s some fucker _touching his stuff and standing in Stiles’ home like they think they’re welcome to do whatever they want in it and **Stiles is going to kill** -_

He chokes on an inhale.  His chest is heaving with emotion.  He wants to smash something.

He thinks he’s going crazy.

He blinks and sucks in another shaky breath.  His gaze somehow focuses more than before, and the blind rage fades to a simmer, enough to give Stiles space to _think_.

He looks at the intruder again.

It’s-

He blinks again, one hand braced against a shelf.

It’s Peter.

Peter, dressed in a black coat with jeans and a shirt underneath, and still a bit gaunt but no longer scarred like he was at the hospital when Stiles went to visit him, and he has his hands at his side in plain sight, and he’s staring steadily back at Stiles even while he cautiously backs away – all the way – until he’s standing on white floor instead of carpet.

They’ve got a good half dozen feet between them now, and Stiles feels just a little more stable again.

He takes another breath and forces his fingers to uncurl from the wood of the bookshelf beside him.

A tense silence ensues.  Stiles clutches at the wooden cat like a lifeline.  It takes him several moments before he registers the black lines creeping along the white of the ceiling and wall and floor like cracks on a windowpane.  They don’t encroach onto the territory that Stiles has claimed for himself for years but the rest of the white room – for as far as the eye can see – suddenly looks infinitely more ominous.

There are minute cracks under Peter’s bare feet too.  For some reason, even if Stiles is wearing them at the time, shoes don’t follow him here, and apparently, that goes for everyone.

Not that Stiles knew anyone else _could_ come here.  Obviously.  He thought he was the only one.

Until now.

He looks at Peter again.  The werewolf’s expression is set in carefully neutral lines, and he doesn’t move when Stiles takes a wary step towards him.

There’s something attached to the man’s ankle, Stiles notices.  A chain of some sort, black like the cracks but much thicker, and it’s attached to-

“What is that?”  He asks before he can stop himself.  His voice is hoarse, and he coughs once to clear it.

He draws closer to what looks like a hole in the ground, complete with jagged edges like dirt that’s been dug up.

He stops just out of arm’s reach of Peter but it’s enough for Stiles to catch a glimpse of what’s inside the hole.

A hole that’s apparently not really a hole.  It looks more like a circular window that-

“Is that Lydia Martin?”  Stiles asks dubiously, watching as the redhead sits down in front of her dresser and starts putting on her makeup.

 There are bags under her eyes, and she looks paler than usual.

He turns his attention onto Peter again.  The werewolf’s eyes are bright but no longer a supernatural Beta blue, and he stares back at Stiles with something uncomfortably close to fascination.

Stiles shifts his weight but doesn’t retreat.  “What… What are you doing here?”

Peter shrugs elegantly and speaks for the first time.  “I didn’t feel like dying just yet.”

The offhand dryness in his tone makes one traitorous corner of Stiles’ mouth twitch up.  Peter smirks in response, and just like that, most of the tension between them dissipates.

“I don’t believe we’ve properly met,” Peter cocks his head, and there’s curiosity in his expression.  “Since you left without saying hello.”

“I wasn’t really stopping by for a chat,” Stiles replies wryly.  “And I’m pretty sure you were one wrong move away from ripping my throat out.”

“I’m sure you would’ve survived even if I had,” Peter tosses out casually, but the gleam in his eyes is anything but.  “After all, last time I saw you, you were in the process of putting a bullet in your brain.”

Stiles goes still.  “…You were at my house that night.”

“Hm,” Peter smiles sharply, and it’s as good as a verbal confirmation.  “I would’ve visited sooner but those three hunters were proving more troublesome to lure out than Meyers and Harris were.”

So that growl wasn’t Stiles’ imagination after all.  “And what were you doing at my house exactly?”

“Well I was going to offer you the Bite,” A muscle in Peter’s jaw ticks even as he continues smiling away.  “And a place in my Pack.  Your little friend Scott-” The disdain in his voice cannot possibly be clearer.  “-was not my first choice.  And I don’t think you wanted me near him anyway, yes?”

Stiles nods almost dumbly, still stalling on- “You wanted me in your Pack?”

Peter arches an eyebrow.  “You figured out I was the Alpha long before anyone else did, and you didn’t tell anybody.  On the contrary, you helped me and asked for nothing in return.”

Stiles frowns.  “Well like you said, I kinda wanted you to leave Scott alone.”

Peter scoffs.  “He was unsuitable anyway.  If I had been in my right mind, I would never have Bitten him.  He was simply the easiest prey around when I caught him in the woods, and then I had to make do with a frustratingly naive teenager who – like my dear, stupid nephew – was smitten with yet another Argent.”

He pauses, gaze intent on Stiles.  “Has anyone told you that you smell like death, Stiles?  Like rain on a fresh grave.  And blood after a successful hunt.  It was only natural I avoided you and went after your friend instead.  You smelled like the most dangerous thing in the forest that night, and I was still weak despite becoming an Alpha so my instincts told me to go after Scott instead.”

Hunger sharpens his features.  “A pity.  Or perhaps rather fortunate.  I don’t think I would want you as my enemy, Stiles.”

Stiles is gaping, just a little.  He snaps his mouth shut as soon as he’s aware of it.

Peter sways forward an inch and croons, “How many times have you died, dear boy?”

Stiles jerks backward.  “I don’t-”

“You die, and you come here instead of moving on immediately like all souls are supposed to,” Peter states, scrutinizing Stiles’ features closely.

Stiles scowls.  “ _You’re_ here.”

“Yes,” The man tips his head at the hole in the floor.  “But I had a feeling I might not live out the night after I killed Kate so I planned accordingly.  I’m only mostly dead, and _that’s_ why I’m here.  Not alive but not quite dead either.  This is the space in-between.”

Stiles knows that already.  He looks at the moving image of Lydia again.  “…Scott said you Bit her, but she didn’t turn, and she’s still alive.  What is she?”

“My anchor to the living world,” Peter’s mouth twists.  “In other words, a banshee.”

Stiles stares for a moment longer, and then he lifts the hand that isn’t holding his cat statue, palm up, and a flicker of a thought later, the Argent Bestiary drops into it.

It’s all in Archaic Latin.  Stiles is picking it up as fast as he can but it isn’t as if he ever thought he’d need to know it, so his translation of this thing is slow-going at best.

He’s come across banshees though, and that’s the page he flips to now.

“How did you do that?”  Peter interrupts, quiet and staring once again.  “That’s the entire Argent Bestiary.”

“Allison stole it for me and Scott to figure out what was going around killing people,” Stiles reveals distractedly as he squints at the text.  “It’s a kanima by the way.”

“And you can make it appear here?”  Peter presses.

Stiles glances at him.  “Well, yeah, since I know it exists now.  Like, I can’t create plants or animals.  Or clocks.  And I can’t make something appear if I don’t… _know_ it myself.  Something like that.  I haven’t read the entire Bestiary but I _know_ it exists, so I can make a copy here.  But like, if you swear up and down that there’s a real-life time-travelling machine or something out there, I still probably wouldn’t be able to replicate it since I don’t _know_ that for myself.  …Does that make sense?”

Peter hums thoughtfully and nods, much to Stiles’ surprise, because Stiles isn’t sure if that explanation makes sense to _himself_.

But whatever.

He returns to the Bestiary.  “…I always knew there was something weird about her.”

“How so?”  The curiosity is back in Peter’s voice.  “Don’t you have a crush on her?”

Stiles blinks at him.  “Who told you that?”

“I’m possessing Ms. Martin until she can bring me back,” Peter says dismissively.  “Some of her… thoughts leak through.  She considers you to be something of an annoyance.”

Stiles can’t help smiling in satisfaction.  “I didn’t like the way she looked at me, so I started falling over myself trying to get her to notice me.  And the more I did that, the more she ignored me again.”

Peter snorts with amusement.  “A banshee _would_ notice something off about you.  They’re rather attuned to death but their powers don’t usually fully kick in until they’re eighteen.”

He regards Stiles shrewdly again.  “I also see what she sees and hear what she hears.  The Argents are probably regretting their decision to move here, aren’t they?”

Stiles suppresses it, the dark twist of a smile that wants to surface, but Peter seems to sense it anyway because he laughs, soft and delighted.  It’s a rusty huff of a sound, like he’s almost forgotten how to laugh, and it lasts maybe two seconds at most, but it’s genuine.

“Do you want to come in?”  Stiles blurts out, and then he almost slaps himself.  What the fuck.

But Peter quirks a half-smile and inclines his head and doesn’t make a big deal out of it, so Stiles just steps back and lets Peter onto the fluffy carpet again.  The moment he joins Stiles, the chain disappears from around his ankle, remaining on the white floor instead.

That’s kinda strange too.  And the cracks from earlier have all disappeared while Stiles and Peter were talking.  Even stranger.  Jesus.

“Er, I didn’t mean to flip out earlier,” Stiles figures he should say _something_ about that even if he isn’t particularly sorry.  “I just- You startled me.  I wasn’t expecting anyone here.”

Peter doesn’t look like he cares overly much.  “This is your den, and I was going through your belongings.  A werewolf would’ve killed an intruder for less.”

“Not a werewolf,” Stiles reminds him.

Peter shakes his head.  “Doesn’t matter.  You have the instincts of one.”

Stiles should not feel so pleased by that, damn it.

“So have you been here all this time?”  He places the cat statue back on the shelf before heading for his chair, the Argent Bestiary under one arm.

Peter makes a negative noise.  “I woke up in a different part of this… room, with that.”  He gestures at the hole.  “But I felt a pull this way so I followed it when I wasn’t with Lydia.  I only got here a few minutes before you arrived.”

Stiles curls up on his favourite beanbag chair before motioning for Peter to pick one of the others.  Peter stops next to the red one – a few feet from Stiles’ blue – and examines it for a moment before taking a seat, gracefully crossing his legs as he makes himself comfortable.

“Do you kill yourself very often?”  Peter enquires abruptly out of the blue, and Stiles freezes all over again.  Peter’s gaze doesn’t waver from his face, and there’s something unsettlingly grim in the man’s eyes.  “I heard your heartbeat that night from down the street.  It was steady as a rock.  I had no idea you were doing anything out of the ordinary, so I suppose…” He cants his head.  “…killing yourself is perfectly ordinary for you.”

Stiles is silent for a long, hushed moment.  He isn’t quite sure what to say.  It’s only just sinking in that – now – _someone knows_.  How exactly is he supposed to react to that?

“When did you first come here, Stiles?”  Peter prods, and his tone is almost _gentle_.

Stiles shrugs, rubbing a thumb along the spine of the Bestiary.  “…I was four.  I was climbing a tree, and I fell.  Broke my neck.”

Why is he talking?  He doesn’t have to explain anything to Peter.

“What does it matter?”  Stiles continues tersely before Peter can say anything else.  “So I get a choice.  That’s more than most people get.  I’m lucky.”

His gaze slides away.  For a second, he feels his mother’s fingers in his hair, wrenching him down hard until there’s nothing but water in his lungs.  For a second, he feels glass break against his head, hatred fuelling the force of the impact.

His hands clench around the book in his lap.

“Do you want something to eat?”  His attempt to change the subject is wildly transparent but Stiles doesn’t give a fuck.  He’s already getting up again.  “I’ll cook you something.”

Peter doesn’t push, only nods.  “May I see your books?”

Stiles waves at the bookshelves before passing him the Bestiary.  “Go ahead.  Put that somewhere on the shelf while you’re at it.”

Nothing more is said about Stiles’ circumstances.  Stiles makes pasta and sticks mini cakes in the fridge.  Peter dives into Stiles’ book collection like a starving man on a buffet.  He’s nose-deep in _Bluebeard_ when Stiles comes back with two plates of food and a tray of drinks.

“Thank you, Stiles,” Peter murmurs, their fingers brushing, and when Stiles summons the doors to leave, the werewolf watches him go with an unreadable expression on his face, but he says nothing more.

 

* * *

 

Stiles watches Lydia more closely for the next couple days.  Sometimes, he can almost swear there’s a shadow of a man standing beside her, and once, a translucent hand waves lazily at him in a way that somehow conveys an aggravating amount of amusement.

Stiles can practically picture the smirk on Peter’s face.

Lydia looks increasingly terrible though.  And she’s staring at him again.  Whatever Peter’s telling her, or whatever she’s sensing, it puts more fright in her expression every time she spots Stiles in the same vicinity.

And that just won’t do.  Stiles has worked too hard at staying under the radar to be outed now as anything more than the irritating teenage spaz.

 

* * *

 

“What are you telling her about me?”  Stiles asks the moment he’s back in the white room.  Peter’s commandeered the red chair again, feet curled underneath him and coatless, idly sipping some tea.

“Nothing,” Peter replies without missing a beat.  “But you’re rather captivating to look at, and she’s noticed my attention on you.”

“Well stop it,” Stiles huffs, flopping down into the blue chair.  “She’s looking at me again.”

“Yes,” Peter agrees before throwing out nonchalantly, “Did you know you’re bleeding from your head, Stiles?”

Stiles automatically reaches up to touch the side of his head.  Peter smiles at him but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  “I see what she sees, and what she sees is a head wound that won’t heal.  Exactly how many times have you shot yourself, Stiles?”

Stiles’ jaw tightens.  “How is that any of your business?”

Peter doesn’t give him a straight answer.  Instead, he levels a searching look on Stiles before remarking, “You handle depression very destructively.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“I beg to differ.  I get the sense that you sunk about as low as you could get years ago, and ever since then, you’ve just been digging your own grave and waiting for the day you can finally lie in it.”

Stiles stares.  He’s fairly certain he’s stopped breathing.  Peter just looks back at him, calm and patient as time.

“…When I was six, I died in a hit-and-run to save Scott,” Stiles’ mouth is moving without his brain’s permission again.  “And I came here again, and I knew it wasn’t just a dream.”

Peter says nothing, though he lowers his tea and somehow gives the impression of listening even more attentively than he already has been.

Stiles opens his mouth.  And then he clicks it shut again and doesn’t say another word.

Peter doesn’t look disappointed.  He doesn’t look much of anything, but then he sets aside his tea on the coffee table, gets to his feet, and pads over to where Stiles is sitting.

Stiles flinches when Peter touches him on the shoulder, but he doesn’t pull away, and when the werewolf nudges him insistently, Stiles shifts over until there’s enough room for Peter to sit down as well.

They end up all but plastered against each other, and Stiles is rigid with anxiety, but Peter just drapes an arm around him and pulls Stiles further into his side.

“I did tell you I want you in my Pack,” Peter reminds him.

“You don’t even know me,” Stiles grits out.

“I’ve had time to observe you,” Peter assures.  “Even before I was killed.  Your interactions with Scott were certainly indicative of your loyalty.  Your flexible morals match mine rather well.  And your _mind_ is frankly astonishing.  I found out about Meyers and Harris myself, but I had no idea any hunter aside from Kate was involved.  And you’re the one responsible for all the crimes the Argents have committed coming out now, aren’t you?  Also, you have impeccable taste in literature and baked goods.”

Stiles almost rolls his eyes.  He would have if Peter isn’t currently a solid line of heat beside him.

“I want you as Pack,” Peter reiterates quietly.  “No one else has claimed you yet as their own, have they?  Not Derek; not even Scott.  Because they don’t see your potential.  They don’t see _you_.  But I do.  And I would very much like it if my packmate would stop hurting himself.”

Stiles stares down at his lap, at his clasped hands.

No one’s ever asked that of him before.  No one’s ever known to ask.

“…I’m safe here.”

“And we could keep each other safe out there,” Peter offers, and when Stiles lifts his head, the werewolf’s eyes are steady with honesty.  “That’s Pack, Stiles.  If you want it.”

Stiles looks away and doesn’t answer.  But after a while, he does let himself relax into the tempting warmth Peter radiates, and he doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up later, half-sprawled on a slumbering Peter with the werewolf’s arms around him.

 

* * *

 

The kanima continues killing people.  After an assault on the police station, Stiles is finally pissed off enough to step in since nobody else seems capable of doing _anything_.  He does his research and translates more of the Bestiary, he confronts Deaton and doesn’t quit pestering the cryptic asshole until he gives some variation of a concrete answer, and finally, he corners Lydia and sits her down with an explanation of how she’s a banshee and her boyfriend is a lizard and will need the power of love to be saved, just as soon as Stiles tracks down Matt Daehler and quite possibly kills the little bastard.

“And then you’ll get him out of my head?”  Lydia demands, but her voice trembles.

Stiles raises an eyebrow.  Lydia’s lips purse.  “I know it has something to do with you.  I just want him out of my head!”

Stiles stifles a sigh and mentally laments the life choices that brought him here.  “He can’t really just disappear anymore.  You’re gonna have to put up with him until the Worm Moon.  There’s a ritual you’ll have to do – it won’t hurt – but after that, you’re free and clear.  Though you might want to read up on banshees the next time you can get your hands on the Argents’ Bestiary.”

Lydia glares but it looks more resigned than anything else, and she deflates after a few seconds.  “ _Fine_.  Call me when Jackson’s a goddamn lizard again.”

She stalks off after that.  Stiles lets her go.  He has more work to do.

 

* * *

 

“Did you kill yourself _again_?”

“Well you’re still here, and I’d take you back with me right now but-” Stiles breaks off, flustered, when Peter crowds close to scent him, cheek pressing against his.  “-but I don’t think your body would be healed right away.  Jeez, Peter.”

Peter growls contentedly, a rumble that thrums deep in his chest like a cat’s purr.  Stiles sighs and throws a clumsy arm around the werewolf, leaning tentatively into Peter for a moment before pulling away.

“Sorry, I can’t-” Stiles has to force himself not to shudder.  He can’t remember the last time anyone deliberately got so close to him.

Peter squeezes the back of his neck before stepping away with a slight smile.  “We’ll ease into it.”

Stiles nods, shoulders loosening as Peter ushers him over to the kitchen counter where a small but delicious-looking spread has been set out.  “You cooked.”

“I am rather good at it,” Peter assures him loftily.

“And your modesty knows no bounds,” Stiles deadpans.

Peter just smirks unrepentantly and tells him to try the risotto.  Stiles thinks he can get used to this.

He just doesn’t know if he wants to.

 

* * *

 

**{~~~}**

 

* * *

 

 

The night Peter rises from the dead, Stiles turns seventeen, and he rolls his eyes at Derek’s betrayed look when he steps past the Alpha and hands Peter a towel and some water, along with a bundle of fresh clothes.

“Need a lift home?”  Stiles asks Lydia.

Lydia just glowers, standing shakily and brushing dirt from her clothes.  “I drove here.  Besides, I’m not getting in the same car as _him_.”

Peter’s in the process of wiping his face, but he pauses, glances at Stiles, and then focuses on the redhead.  “My apologies, Ms. Martin; it was nothing personal.  I’ll have Stiles give you a text on banshees as a token of my… gratitude.”

Lydia just glares harder, but tellingly enough, she doesn’t refuse the offer.  She sweeps out of the crumbling house towards her car.  Stiles doesn’t bother watching her go, probably returning to Jackson’s house where she and Stiles carted Jackson after he went from kanima to werewolf.

“Whatever happened to the other boy?”  Peter muses, standing still when Stiles takes the towel and mops up as much of the dirt on his back as possible.  “The one controlling the kanima?”

“He had an accident,” Stiles informs him flatly.  “He’s in the hospital now, unconscious.  Can you visit later and remove his memories of the supernatural?  You can still do the claw-neck thing, right?”

“Of course,” Peter nods, shucking his tattered pants.  “And then?”

“Then?”  Stiles scoffs.  “Then I’m gonna nail his balls to the wall with criminal harassment and murder charges.  He’ll take the blame for all the people he used Jackson to kill, and then he’ll either go straight to state prison or he’ll stay in juvie until he’s eighteen and _then_ be transferred straight to jail.  But I’d bet on the former; Allison’s one of the girls he’s taken pictures of, and Chris is already out for blood with his family in tatters.”

Peter chuckles.  “And whose fault is that?”

“Their own,” Stiles shoots back, handing Peter a shirt.  “Now let’s get outta here.”

Peter stuffs the remains of his old clothes into a bag Stiles brought before stooping down to smirk at his nephew.  Derek snarls, eyes a furious, desperate, crimson red, but he doesn’t attack, _can’t_ attack, can barely even move, still weak and laid out on the floor.

“If I had come back a worse man…” Peter murmurs silkily, one claw-tipped finger tracing the terribly vulnerable flesh of Derek’s throat.  “Fortunately for you, Nephew, I didn’t.”

He retracts his hand and straightens, and Stiles smiles as he turns to lead them out to his jeep.

“I’ve shuffled some fake transfer papers into the hospital’s records,” Stiles reveals once they’re on their way out of the Preserve.  “Allegedly, you were relocated to a hospital on the east coast that specializes in physiotherapy and skin grafts.  Nobody’s mentioned the fact that you were dead since that would lead to a round of whodunit that nobody wants to play, so everyone in the know is under the impression that you’ve been officially labelled missing, and everyone else who knows about you is under the impression that you’re healing in a different hospital, _so_.  You can come back anytime.”

Stiles gulps down a much-needed breath as they trundle into town.  He glances sideways and flushes.  “What?”

Peter’s watching him with something unsettlingly close to admiration.  “It really is too bad you aren’t aiming to become a detective or follow in your father’s footsteps.”

Stiles frowns.  “What makes you say that?  I could become a cop.”

“You could,” Peter agrees.  “A very good one.  But you want to open your own bakery, don’t you?”

Stiles turns to stare at him for several seconds before jerking his gaze forward again.  He’s never said-

“You enjoy baking,” Peter clarifies with a soft smile.  “A blind man would know just by the taste of your food.  And of course, it’s far more important to pursue what you enjoy.  Doubly so when you excel at it too.”

Stiles can feel his ears turn red.  It’s dark but Peter can probably see it.

“Shut up,” Stiles huffs, but it lacks the bite he wanted to put into it.  He slants another look at the werewolf.  “…My dad won’t be home tonight; do you want to-”

_-stay?_

He’s never asked anyone that.  Never allowed himself to ask it because he’s good at picking out the lies from the truth, and he’s always known that the answer to that one question from anyone he cares enough to ask in the first place could destroy him.

“Yes, of course,” Peter replies easily, and noise rushes back into Stiles’ ears.  “I need a hot shower, badly.  And my _hair_ , good god.”

Stiles chokes out a laugh, and if the sound is a little wet and more than a little unsteady, Peter is kind enough to pretend not to notice.

 

* * *

 

Of course, they cuddle after Peter’s taken his shower and rifled through Stiles’ closet for a shirt and a pair of sweats.  They climb into bed and under the covers, and the werewolf settles behind Stiles and slings an arm around Stiles’ waist.

It should be weird.  It _is_ kind of weird, but somehow in a good way.  Peter doesn’t smother him, as if he’s well aware of how unused to touch Stiles is.  There isn’t anything you’d call space between Peter’s chest and Stiles’ back, but at the same time, the werewolf isn’t gluing himself to Stiles either.

Stiles has no idea how he got here.  Well, he does.  He meddled and kept on meddling, gravitated to Peter and allowed the man to pull him in the rest of the way instead of shutting the werewolf out.

Maybe it’s because he’s lonely, and Peter’s the first and only one to recognize that because Stiles is fairly certain that the werewolf is pretty damn lonely too.

Like attracts like.

And on some level, Stiles has always known that the two of them are similar in more ways than one.

It’s too late to back out now anyhow.  He’s given Peter too much power over him.  His only consolation is the fact that Peter’s given him an equal amount of power over the werewolf.

They’re undeniably Pack now, for better or for worse, and that kind of bond goes both ways.

“You’re thinking too much,” Peter mutters from behind him.  “Go to sleep, Stiles.”

His arm tightens briefly around Stiles, and it feels a lot like reassurance.

Stiles closes his eyes and lets himself go lax.

He thinks of the white room.  He thinks of the way he so easily allowed Peter into the place Stiles goes to to get away from everyone and everything.

He thinks of death and how – lately – instead of thinking _I want to die_ , he thinks _I want to go see Peter again_ , and he realizes he hasn’t even considered the other door since Peter inserted himself into Stiles’ life.

That’s when Stiles knows he’s in trouble.

Because life disappoints you, time and time again, and one day, Peter will go the same way as all the other people Stiles has tried to be a good son for, a good friend for – out the metaphorical door because they inevitably found something better or simply couldn’t put up with Stiles any longer.

And Stiles is a fool for letting it happen yet again.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Please leave a review on your way out.**  
>     
>  **Lyrics:** "Mad World" by Tears for Fears; Version Sung by Gary Jules


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